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I locked my gaze on his front hooves and willed them to root.

The wave of death energy engulfed him from the iron shoes upward. He tried to rear, but one foreleg turned to solid stone before the other. He slammed onto his knees as the granite spread rapidly through his equine chest and flanks. I drove my power straight to the belt at his waist, and I deliberately stopped.

Nessos threw his head back and screamed, the sound cutting raw and desperate through the smoke.

I could have guided the death energy up his spine and turned his lungs to rock before he drew another breath. But this was a more fitting punishment, at least for now. He was a feral beast anchored to the burning earth, left alive in his own ruined body to watch his tribe fall. Thalia remained curled over her father’s body, and she deserved to hear him answer for what he had done.

Still aching for my mate, I walked toward Nessos. He was braced on his human palms, dragging frantically at a petrified lower half that would never answer him again. Sweat and soot ran down his face. He twisted his torso toward me, the violent effort ending in another wretched cry.

I stopped right by his side. “Tell your men to drop their weapons.”

He bared his teeth, his eyes wild with pain. “Never. You do not command the Nephelidai.”

“I don’t have to.” I stared down at him. “I’ll say it once more. Tell them to yield, or watch the rest of them turn to rock.”

For a moment, he clung to his defiance. Then he dragged in a harsh breath and screamed for his men to surrender. The order carried through the smoke, broken and furious. Seconds later, a second voice repeated the command from the far side of the village. The clash of metal ceased.

The wailing of the villagers did not.

Across the muddy road, the surviving humans and dryads slowly emerged from the smoking alleys. They stared at the stone remains of their attackers, and then their terrified eyes locked onto my uncovered face. I held their gaze for a long moment. Then I turned my back on the broken centaur chief and walked back to my grieving wife.

13

The Goodbye

Thalia

The convocation gathered outside the ruined hall because there was no roof left to shelter them.

Four days after the attack, Melia still reeked of wet ash and decay. Rain had settled the worst of the dust and washed some of the blood from the packed dirt road, but the houses remained blackened shells. Behind the wooden benches brought out for the elders, a burned timber beam lay across the exact place where Father had fallen.

I looked at the charred wood once, then forced myself to turn toward Nessos.

They had positioned him on the ground before the council. His wrists were bound tightly in front of him with hemp rope. He had to crane his neck to see the people arriving. He grimaced with every slight movement, his living flesh grinding against his petrified lower body.

Eryx stood close beside me, his scarred face turned toward the crowd. People looked at him, some in fear, others in awe and curiosity. He didn’t flinch from any of their stares. He simply reached down, his fingers brushing against my knuckles.

“Do you want me beside you when you speak?” he asked.

“Yes, I want you right here,” I replied. “They need to hear me, but they also need to see you.”

He squeezed my hand and stayed by my side, as I’d asked him.

Representatives had come from the wealthy satyr clans, the neighboring villages, the dryad groves, and the deep shrines. Centaurs stood among them too, from other tribes that had nothing to do with Nessos. The Nephelidai survivors were utterly broken, stripped of their standing and barred from speaking. Behind the council waited the survivors of Melia.

We’d buried Father two mornings earlier. There had been other graves dug beside his, too many names to speak in one breath.

The council had heard those names before I arrived. They’d also listened to the shivering survivors describe exactly what the Nephelidai had done. And now, Nessos would finally be judged for it.

A shrine elder, a woman with braided silver hair, stood from her bench and planted her staff in the dirt.

“Nessos of the Nephelidai,” she said, her voice echoing over the quiet square. “You ordered a settlement of the Endless Forests burned to the ground. You hunted a maiden of the shrines. You gambled the survival of every clan in this region on a private slaughter. Have you anything to say before judgment is passed?”

Nessos dragged in a rattling breath. He didn’t look at the elder. His dark eyes locked onto me, burning with a fanatic’s absolute certainty.

“I cleansed a rot you were too cowardly to face,” he spat. “My father died at the gorgon’s hands. Eryx of Asphodelia killed Rhoikos of the Nephelidai.”

A wave of tense whispers broke out across the square. The older village heads and satyr nobles exchanged uneasy glances. A blood debt was a sacred, ancient right in the Wilds.